In a recent tweet, Trump criticized the United States ongoing trade deficits with Japan. Historically, the United States has imported significantly more goods from Japan than it has exported. Trump was harsh on his stance against the trade deficit, calling it “losing” and unfair to American businesses.
In his tweet, Trump proposed a trade war with nations he perceived as taking advantage of the US, calling the problem “easy to win”. Trump specifically generated a proposal for harsh tariffs against Japanese imports in order to curb the deficit. Japanese anime and manga, major media exports for the nation, would be made significantly more expensive to obtain under the new proposal.
Some in the media industry criticized Trump’s proposal, calling it potentially disastrous to certain parts of the American economy. Companies such as Crunchyroll and Funimation pointed to licensed anime works as the main source of income for conducting business in the United States.
Manga fans were particularly adamant to their opposition to the tariffs, stating that they were already broke enough as it is.
Trump responded to criticism by calling for more American companies to export their own anime to Japan in order to balance the deficit. Series such as Neo Yokio, RWBY, and Minions were given as some of the potential example export candidates.
The Environmental Protection Agency contested Trump’s suggestion, saying that it would directly conflict with federal laws prohibiting the export of electronic waste.
“You can’t just dump garbage like that on other developed nations and call it a day,” stated an official EPA representative. “Hazardous waste must be disposed of properly and safely it order to prevent negative impact to the environment and human health.”
Members within Congress also advised Trump to avoid actions which could damage American’s relationships with its allies. Although some claimed it was already too late once Netflix began making live action adaptations.